Homecoming
by NJbinky
Summary: A different version of Willow-Tara that diverges from just after they met in season 4, year 1 university. Set in 2012. Willow-Tara domestic fluff/PWP, so please be advised/warned and avoid if this is not your bag.
1. Friday Night

**HOMECOMING**

Summary: Willow comes home from her conference early. Set in 2012, California.

Rating: AO

Warnings: Um, mystically conceived kids. This isn't everyone's thing, heck, I'm not sure it's mine. But if you are really bothered by the premise, this might not be for you.

Notes: A not-quite PWP multi-chapter using a weekend sex-a-thon as the premise to explore some more serious themes, i.e. parenthood and marriage—otherwise referable to as the "holy heck, I'm middle-aged—how'd that happen?" stage of writing smutty fanfic. Also an opportunity to try some writerly exercises, i.e. writing memory, exposition, and sex. I am using this piece as a way to shake off the rust and ease myself back into a regular posting schedule in preparation for a couple of longer, more complicated plot-driven AUs, including re-starting The Coven.

Feedback: Yes, please. All kinds appreciated. PM/email, or right here is fine.

* * *

Willow fidgeted in the narrow coach aisle seat as the captain announced their final approach to San Diego International. The jet lag and the almost six hour flight from Providence had been getting to her for the last two hours, creeping softly over the edges of her excitement to be on her way back home. It was just after 1:00 AM local time and truncating the national conference at Brown she had just attended as a speaker from the scheduled five days to three meant her body had only just partially adjusted to the three hour time difference. But boredom and missing her family had pushed her to catch the last coach flight back home on stand-by rather than wait for her business-class return flight she was booked to take in two days, which would have landed at a much more reasonable hour.

The plane started its descent and the attendant who had been attempting to flirt with the redhead for the first two hours of the flight stood to take the PA handset to make the pre-landing announcements. It had taken the two hours for Willow to get a clue, before she finally raised her left hand and very deliberately wiggled her fingers to show off the thin gold wedding band that had been hidden when holding her iPad, smiling shyly.

The ring was not "legal" but was legitimate in every other way. Ten years with only the second person she'd ever professed her love for often resulted in her being oblivious to even the most aggressive advances of players of either gender testing the redhead's availability. Generally the cluelessness would first lead to irritation with their encroachments into her personal space, then eventually flattery and embarrassment as the realization sunk in about why they were being so forward, followed almost immediately by disbelief and the conclusion that surely she had misunderstood their intentions, even if they took the heavy-handed approach. Tara was the same—if anything, her lover was even more prone to the embarrassed self-effacement, maybe because Willow had been her first in every significant way.

The fairly good-looking young man had afterwards stayed away. Maybe he was embarrassed at his lack of success, maybe insulted. Whatever the reason, a female co-worker had handled Willow's snack and drink order instead. Now he was back, adjusting the PA system and advising Willow and her fellow passengers to power off their electronic devices, store their bags and adjust their trays and seat backs back into the fully upright position. Those standard airline phrases gave Willow an extra burst of adrenaline to be back home.

The wheels touched down and her heart skipped a beat as it always did when taking off and landing. Willow had acquired an acute fear of flying, ever since a life-altering event four years ago, when she and Faith had been kidnapped mid-flight from the small charter plane ferrying them over international waters between Scotland and Spain where they'd been Scoobying by a faction of Ban-Ghot demons who brought the two women to their hell dimension to be pawns in their civil war… It had been a long year in the human world for her young family, and a long seven years, give or take, for her and the rehabilitated Slayer in the hell dimension. Keeping track of time had often been secondary to running for their lives from the various demon clans out to prove themselves against the most powerful witch and one of the original two slayers in the human world.

Her first flight after her return had been rough, to say the least. Boarding the mid-sized DC10 had been smooth enough, but the shaking and general unease began pretty much immediately after take-off. She had spent almost the entire two hour flight from San Diego to Seattle to visit Dawn curled up in a ball under a travel blanket, tucked under Tara's arm which just barely made it bearable. Kera had been eight and Lily still shy of four at the time, and being infantilized like that was crushing to her, leaving Tara in an even worse position than had she traveled with the girls alone.

_Better off without you..._

That thought still haunted her, so once on firm ground in Seattle, Willow set her famous resolve to never be incapacitated like that, to the point of being unable to provide for her family, ever again.

She still had flight fear even now, even in larger planes like the current 747. Since that incident and after her powers had been restored a year after she had brokered them away with one of the ruling clans in exchange for her and Faith's return, she had concentrated on her defensive skills. One skill that remained elusive, however, was teleporting. When push came to shove, she could accomplish a trip short distances with some proficiency, but teleporting cross-country still took a lot of power that tended to come with a heavy price. On the practical side, doing so undocumented would raise too many questions that couldn't be explained with non-Sunnydale logic. Considering Sunnydale was now a crater in the ground after Buffy's epic battle with the First over seven years ago, she couldn't count on Hellmouth vibes explaining odd happenings that still tended to occur around her as a practicing mega-witch, one of if not the the most powerful in the world. Besides which, Tara didn't approve of using the big magicks in such a frivolous way anyway. Flying was much easier and actually a thrill, but hardly a practical way of traveling twenty miles much less 2,000.

So Willow sucked up her phobia, which she had come to terms with by facing in her usual logical, methodical way, so that rather than a paralyzing terror it was now mostly an acute anxiety mixed in with a healthy, normal dislike of traveling through airports.

She thought again of her love, and unconsciously smiled what many would consider a very goofy grin. As soon as the plane touched down, Willow had powered her iPhone back on but had kept from calling and waking Tara, conscious of the hour and excited to surprise her with her early return. As an independent programmer, Willow had the luxury of working from her home office, allowing her to take care of Dani and the older kids when school let out, before Tara's own school day ended and she came home. With this invitation for Willow to speak at the academic conference on Technology and Postmodern Religions, Tara had taken the week off to take care of the kids. Xander had stepped in to take them over the weekend until Sunday evening, just after her regular scheduled return. So that gave Tara and her at least one and a half days of uninterrupted alone time. That was a rare commodity since Dani was still just 14 months.

Almost from the beginning of her relationship with Tara, both had realized a healthy amount of sexual lust was an integral part of their attraction—as much as the profound spiritual feelings they had for each other. That hadn't lessened with the familiarity of years of sharing the same bed. Even now, part of her early return scheme had as much to do with the rare event of the kids being out of the house and having Tara to herself for a day and two nights, uninterrupted. She was reminded of that fact by the pleasant warmth between her legs, thinking of her woman.

The desire stayed strong as the plane taxied toward the waiting gate but she quelled it to a pleasant hum as she waited patiently in line for the full flight to deplane, then made her way to the baggage claim area with the rest of her weary fellow travelers. Another twenty minutes later, the baggage carousel finally spat out her one piece of luggage, at least made easier to spot with the yellow stand-by tag, a little fuller than when she had left, holding some souvenirs for the kids and a special present she had picked up for Tara during a jaunt into the older and seedier part of downtown Providence. Riding in the taxi home, she let the want flow free reign through her, so that by the time the cab pulled up to their two-storey detached Victorian in Chula Vista, her panties were decidedly damp.

She was buzzing anew with anticipation, leaving her briefcase by the side table in the foyer and not bothering with any of the lights, instead heading straight to the main staircase off the entrance to the second floor to their master bedroom at the end of the hall. She left her bag just inside the door of their bedroom, kicked off her shoes, shed her jacket, shirt, jeans, and bra, tossing them onto the stuffed armchair in the corner. She pulled on the first tee shirt she found from her top drawer as she quietly approached their bed. Tara's curvy form under the sheets made her nipples hard. They brushed against the cotton almost painfully as she slipped in behind to spoon her lover, barely refraining from pushing her mound into the sleeping woman's behind. However, she couldn't help running her hand from Tara's hip underneath her tank top across her stomach to just underneath one full breast. Tara did not wear a bra when she slept. It was one of the many wonderful things Willow appreciated about her lover. She maneuvered herself to lean into the dark blonde hair and breathe in her welcoming, familiar scent…

"Gary, no," Tara groaned. "I need to get my strength back before Willow gets home…"


	2. Early Saturday Morning, part one

Willow squeezed Tara's breast extra hard, ending with a twist of her nipple. "Ha ha, very funny." Gary was the plumber friend of Xander's who had worked on the remodel of their master en suite last month. He seemed like a nice enough guy, clean, polite, and fairly good looking for a man, she'd thought, until Xander let it slip that he had asked about Tara's availability after the first day of working on their bathroom. Xander had had to babysit him for the rest of the week to make it up to Willow, since the man apparently really was that clueless.

Tara giggled as she flicked the bedside lamp on then turned and looked over her shoulder. An impish grin and her sleep-tousled hair and half-lidded eyes in the low light of the lamp took Willow's breath away. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but why are you here?"

"Couldn't stay away any longer," she whispered. Her fingers were still on Tara's breast under the other woman's tank and began to softly play.

Tara's nipple hardened more between Willow's fingertips, belying her wry response, "Booty call couldn't wait, huh?"

Willow grinned, happy Tara was willing to play. "It really couldn't." She lifted her eyes briefly to Tara's. "How's Xander doing with the kids? Still all good?"

"He called at nine, said everything was great and he was putting them to bed so they could get an early start tomorrow, but I could still hear all three in the background. They were pretty loud. Not exactly what I think of when I hear 'getting ready for bed' but I'm sure he has everything under control."

"Or he at least thinks so."

Tara smirked. "So how was the conference?"

Willow stopped playing with Tara's breast to tug on the bottom hem of the tank top the other woman had been sleeping in. This was routine for the two women. Tara smirked but pulled the shirt easily off her torso. As soon as Tara had tossed it to the side, Willow gently pushed her lover back to the bed and straddled the other woman's waist. Both her hands went immediately to Tara's bare chest. "S'okay. Problem with these things is they always group similar topics together for some reason. So if your panel is one of the first to go, you kind of shoot your wad early, to borrow a phrase which I'm sure has been used on more than one occasion by our friend Gary."

Tara rolled her eyes at Willow's abrupt crassness.

Willow grinned. "So you wind up missing the other talks that would be more up your alley, so to speak, but then it's kind of rude not to stay and try to act interested in what's left. Until you start thinking of your hot woman waiting for you at home who you really want up your alley, to continue the lame euphemism." Tara shook her head to show her exasperation but didn't interrupt the rambling explanation. "Then you make up any kind of flimsy excuse to beg the conference organizers off the rest of the all-expense paid trip and leave early. From there, all that's left is to show up at the airport and hope you can get something home on standby. I got lucky on the last flight. It was late by the time I got the call to board then there was no time before I lost my phone signal. Musta been in Verizon territory—damn phone kept losing signal almost the entire time. We only touched down forty minutes ago, then I had to wait for my bag."

"You should've called when you got in. I would've picked you up."

"Didn't wanna wake you and there were still cabs waiting."

Tara let her lover ramble, as it gave her plenty of time to feel the heat between Willow's legs and the dampness of her panties on her belly and let the same warmth build through her. But it was late… "Baby, aren't you tired? You can sleep first."

"Slept on the plane," Willow lied, still distracted with Tara's pretty brown nipples as they hardened at her fingertips.

Eight years together and still worried about Willow's acquired fear of flight, Tara saw through it easily. She grasped Willow's wandering hands in her own, forcing the other woman to look her straight in the eye.

Willow crumbled easily against Tara's pointed stare. "Okay, I tried to sleep on the plane. I napped. A few times. It was great. Better than great! I'm feeling fresh as a daisy, for being cooped up in a tin can on boosters rocketing through the sky with 200 other strangers breathing recirculated air, paranoid some creepy demon would …" A thought occurred to the rambling redhead. "Oh. Unless… you're not feeling…"

Tara sat up, shifting Willow in her lap and causing some very nice friction for both women. In case that wasn't enough, she leaned in and silenced her rambling lover with a firm kiss. "Not a question, sweetheart. Rarely is, and I'd tell you if it were, but I did some work on the basement after dinner, and I could use some freshening up myself before you—"

Willow leaned and kissed her lover just as firmly, leaving Tara a little flushed herself. "You taste as good as always. But I'm sure I have airplane stink on me. Do you wanna…?" She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Put the new shower to use?" Tara finished the thought.

Five minutes later they were both in the recently renovated shower, just slightly warmer than necessary, water cascading down Willow's face and heaving chest and Tara's back as the blonde knelt in front of her barely standing partner. Tara's left arm was wrapped around Willow's thigh, helping Willow spread her legs, one foot planted but the other on the edge of the seat built into the corner of the stall. Mostly, she was propped up against the cool tile of the wall. Tara's right hand was busy spreading the swollen lips of Willow's sex to expose her engorged clit. Tara blew on it lightly, then extended her tongue to glide along the left inner lip, just barely stopping before reaching Willow's hard little nub.

Willow groaned. She was actually trembling with lust and was sure her clit would explode with the blood pounding through it if Tara didn't—

Tara languorously trailed her tongue back down the other lip, spreading Willow further and savoring her lover's familiar taste. Water was trailing down Willow's centerline, the little streams getting caught in the trimmed short hairs on her mound which diverted most of the water away from her entrance, so that Tara tasted Willow first and foremost. She probed gently at first, teasing with the soft tip of her tongue, under and around the hood of Willow's clit. After a few moments of this, she could tell Willow was already very, very close. The redhead's thighs were tensed and one hand was gripping the handrail of the shower door, her knuckles white. Tara smiled, remembering a time in a similar position in the much smaller shower of their first apartment together when Willow had let herself go while about to cum spectacularly as a result of the coaxing of Tara's increasingly talented mouth. She had ended up grabbing the blonde's hair, quite painfully, resulting in Tara's head jerking at a very inopportune time and an abrupt end to that night's activity that left both of them frustrated not to mention physically sore, though Willow's injury was clearly in a more tender area than Tara's nose. Thereafter, Willow was very good when the other woman was going down on her to grab anything but Tara's hair, no matter how much of her formidable higher brain function was lost at the moment.

"Fuuuuck…" Willow groaned.

"Okay," Tara agreed, and without further teasing drilled her tongue into her lover's pussy. Willow gasped, her hips beginning to move, asking for more of the wet muscle to fill her.

Tara loved it like this, loved the feel and the taste of Willow against her lips and surrounding her tongue, loved being inside the woman she adored, pleasing her any way she could. And Willow was so very appreciative in kind. She alternated gently sucking Willow's clit and fucking her entrance with her tongue, then eagerly licked up the fragrant juices that spilled from the wet pussy. She barely was able to keep up with the flow.

Tara pushed further into Willow's entrance, trying to reach as deep as her fingers would. Her nose bumped into Willow's engorged clit again and it was all enough to send the standing woman over the edge she had been teetering over for the better part of the past hour. She gasped as she rode Tara's tongue to a magnificent orgasm befitting the build-up, the pleasure radiating from her pussy to her extremities so intense she felt her knees begin to buckle. Her body was still shuddering as she began to slide down against the shower wall, her mouth open and eyes closed with the near shock of finally cumming.

Tara felt Willow's smooth inner walls gradually relinquish their squeeze around her tongue, signaling the conclusion of Willow's first orgasm of the night. She continued to lap at Willow's still throbbing pussy, prolonging her partner's orgasm even as she helped ease her down. She couldn't help herself from dropping a final firm poke of her tongue and kiss on Willow's clit before it dipped beyond reach of her mouth on Willow's way down. Willow groaned, but at least her mischievous lover hadn't sucked or worse, nipped. She finished her slide to the shower floor so she sat bonelessly with Tara kneeling between her splayed, useless legs. Tara scooted forward, Willow's arms rising to lie around her neck. She was smiling coyly as she leaned into a lazy kiss.

Willow tasted herself on the other woman's lips and tongue, ending with a swipe of Tara's chin that was still slick and shiny with her cum. She giggled at Tara's smug smile, covered as it was in her cream. "You know, we really don't get clean when we do this."

"Mmm. And not so much with the water conservation, either, despite the high efficiency showerhead," Tara teased, wiping her mouth then reaching up to turn off the water.

"Speaking of which, I'm getting pruny. And my butt's cold sitting here. Do you think I could take you someplace more comfy, like the bed?"

"Sweetheart, you can take me anywhere you want, as long as you take me."

Willow smiled, biting her lower lip. "Well, since you put it that way…"


	3. Early Saturday Morning, part two

Tara helped the other woman up onto her still shaky legs and out of the stall. She toweled herself off quickly on her way back to the bedroom, tossing her towel onto the stuffed chair in the corner before climbing back to the middle of their queen-sized bed, expecting Willow just behind her. While she loved going down on Willow, pleasing the other woman had been her primary focus, satisfying her own desire secondary to making Willow cum as hard as she could. She was still very much wet herself, her pussy needy and anticipating.

Instead, the redhead walked past to her suitcase by the door of their bedroom. Naked Willow leaned over to open and rummage through the suitcase, giving Tara a very nice view of her lover's pert ass and slim thighs, particularly when she bent over the luggage before straightening and turning to come back to the bed, holding a plastic bag. Tara couldn't discount the very real possibility the extra wiggle when Willow was bent over wasn't deliberate. She accepted the proffered bag, sporting a generic "THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATRONAGE!" across it, with just a raised eyebrow to question it.

"I, uh, got you a present while I was walking around the older, non-made-over part of Providence. Well, it's for both of us, really." Willow watched her lover's face carefully for her reaction as she reached into the bag.

Tara pulled the harness in its clear plastic bag first, which prompted a curious, puzzled look, as they didn't have a dog—hadn't been able to get one despite Willow prematurely promising Kera, after they'd found Lily was allergic to dog fur at the shelter. Then the comprehension hit, and Tara immediately reached back into the bag to pull out the long, plain white box. Willow was still looking at her somewhat anxiously, so she took a moment to compose herself before smiling at her lover. "It's a little too heavy to be a wand from Ollivander's."

Willow was encouraged by the gentle prod. "I know we've only just talked about it a couple of times before, and you said you were interested but you laughed when you said it, so maybe you weren't serious and were just trying to reassure me—which I love about you, among other things. But if that's the case, it's okay. We don't have to use them, though I don't think I'll be returning them, either, number one, 'cause even though there was no outright declaration of policy against returns, I'm pretty sure these are not the kinds of things you can get a refund for, unless maybe for warranty, though nothing electric with these. I mean, the leather obviously, might have issues, and rubber can break down with age or over-use depending on the quality, but silicone's good for this kind of thing… On top of that, even though they were kind of expensive, I paid cash. I, uh, know that you know that I can be, uh, money-conscious about these kinds of things…"

Tara knew it was true. She wasn't sure if Willow had always been frugal about personal spending all her life—she tended to think not, considering how generous Willow had been on their first few Espresso Pump and Magic Box "dates" as friends, just because Tara clearly was more financially strapped than Willow, who was still being supported by her distant but generous upper-middle-class parents. But then Willow had somehow gotten Tara pregnant with another spell gone awry, and after the disbelief gave way to acceptance, she had thrown herself with typical Willowish resolve and bravery into financially supporting Tara through her pregnancy and the follow-up medical care, housing, and baby products for Kera and Tara. She had also been determined to do so with as little dependence on Ira and Sheila as possible. Despite the fairly well-paying freelance programmer's salary Willow had managed for some of the many local start-up and mid-sized gaming firms in their part of California, they were still just college kids, and things had been so tight…

Willow had continued to ramble on as was her wont through her explanation of her spendy but useless present, not noticing the fond smile on Tara's lips as she recalled their early times together. "…And I know there're online stores and usually they're cheaper but it's really something you need to pick out in person. Maybe now, if we get good at this, we can finally make it to Good Vibrations and not feel totally out of place. It's practically our duty as California lesbians. Plus, not really something I wanted to pay credit for. I know better than anyone how electronic transactions can make a record that's almost impossible to erase, credit cards especially—not that I would've been embarrassed by this, 'cause, you know, I'm not a prude or anything. Or, uh, I hope you think that, 'cause if you don't, then I've got other problems." Willow laughed, nervously. "But it's also not something I want TPTB to know—the ideological institutional ones who spy on us and manipulate us, I don't care much what the divine ones think they know. So anyway, I'm not going to fly back to Providence to return them any time soon, 'cause that'd be pretty dumb…"

"Will," Tara interjected gently.

Tara finally reacting made Willow shut up immediately. She waited patiently for Tara's reaction.

"I laughed because it's a little embarrassing to say out loud, 'yes, I want to try toys.' But I meant it when I said everything we've done has been wonderful, even when it didn't go as well as we'd hoped, just because it's been with you."

Willow smiled with relief. This was exactly what she'd hoped Tara had meant.

Tara opened the long box and this time couldn't help but giggle. The prosthetic was a very sexy and lesbian-friendly bright purple but was shaped relatively realistically, if a little larger than Tara expected. "It's, um, cute. And big."

"They had bigger ones but I figured this'd do for our first try, especially since neither of us have been exactly big with the penetration."

Tara smiled affectionately at her lover. "You think of everything, sweetheart."

Willow only grinned smugly at the compliment.


	4. Early Saturday Morning, part three

Perhaps there was some unconscious gender mystification still at play in their relationship, what with Tara carrying and giving birth to their three daughters and Willow somehow always being the "daddy" (Kera named her so as soon as she had started to talk and Lily and Danielle had followed their big sister's lead after they, too, became vocal) but for whatever reason, it seemed both women understood Willow would wear the gear, at least for their first time. If Tara were being completely honest with herself, despite their easy assumption of their non-traditional postmodernity, she knew this had worried her at first when Willow had brought up possibly venturing into toys, that Willow might miss penal intercourse. But those insecurities, she was a little embarrassed to admit even to herself, had lessened at Willow's first halting description of her fantasies of topping Tara when she first broached the topic.

Between pre-washing the silicone toy which they did together, the two of them giggling at their suddenly virginal status, and the lack of instructions that came with the harness, it took a few minutes to completely outfit and settle Willow. Once a good enough fit was achieved, Tara climbed back into bed with Willow following close behind. Willow had also picked up some KY during her visit that she now spread along the shaft of the dildo and around Tara's inner lips. Tara was dryer than she normally would be due to lingering nervousness, and Willow did not want her woman to be uncomfortable.

Tara spread her legs wide and held herself open while Willow attended to her, which her lover did slowly and sensuously. Willow fingering Tara's folds and rubbing her clit awake from its brief nap relaxed her a great deal, so that she was quickly as wet as she had been while going down on Willow in the shower.

Willow bent over Tara to lick and suck on a nipple as she continued to finger-fuck the other woman's folds. When her fingers were able to slide easily through the lube and Tara's natural wetness, she entered Tara's pussy with fore and middle fingers.

Tara shifted, opening herself up even more, and Willow easily added her ring finger to the fucking while she toyed Tara's clit with her thumb. Tara ran her fingers through Willow's hair and the redhead obediently released her nipple and straightened to kiss her lover slowly and gently. A few moments of this leisurely finger fucking had Tara ready for more. She moaned, low and long against Willow's mouth. Willow pulled her fingers out and retreated back to reckon the angles while Tara waited as patiently as she could muster for Willow's next move. Tara was sitting upright, propped up a bit by the pillows, leaning against the headboard. Willow couldn't figure how it could work that way. "Um, not sure how you feel about it, but I think if you get on your knees, baby…"

Tara wordlessly turned herself onto her knees so she faced the headboard of the bed. She spread her legs wide and Willow scooted behind her, the toy pointing straight to Tara's swollen pussy, shiny with the lube and her own juices. The sight and smell almost made Willow dizzy. She recovered quickly and got into position herself, feeling only slightly awkward as the dildo waved lazily in front of her. She felt a little out of balance and took her time entering Tara slowly from behind, holding her lover tightly around the midsection to her. Willow groaned, as the base of the toy ground against her own swollen and sensitive clit. Her eyes were squeezed tight as she pushed slowly into Tara until the toy was buried to the base. "You're so tight, baby… Are you okay?" She started a slow push and roll with her hips.

Tara was feeling… stuffed.

"I—I want…"

…to see you…

"Okay," Willow whispered back and pulled out of Tara's pussy just enough for the blonde to turn to her back. Tara bent her legs so her entrance was off the bed, cradling the other woman between her thighs and opening herself for her lover to slide easily back into her.

This sharing, a type of aural phasing due to the intimacy of their physical contact, Willow figured out later, was accepted much more naturally than the first time the magical mindlink occurred, a few months after they became lovers their sophomore year at UC Sunnydale.

It was just another development in their rapidly developing, if unconventional relationship. Willow would remark about it later, how they seemed to have started out at this love thing sort of backwards. First, as spell-casting partners, thrown together in the laundry room of Stevenson Hall the night the Gentlemen had come stalking the campus for their next victim. Life and death situations like that often accelerated more normal ones like ordinary friendship. That started quickly, but the really, really accidental pregnancy as the starting point in their meandering detour to becoming lovers wasn't exactly something either woman could have planned.

So maybe it was inevitable that Willow fumbled even the most "normal" part of their adventure together a little, at first. As soon as she realized the strong feelings she was experiencing in Tara's company exceeded the normal bounds of friendship or their natural spell-casting synchronicity, she went through a two-week period of thorough self-reflection involving bouts of doubt, denial, and, she was a little embarrassed to admit, even suspicion. She had never thought to question her heterosexuality growing up pining after Xander, or with her year-long relationship with Oz, at least until she met her vampire doppelgänger in their junior year of high school. But even then, the ick factor of Vampire Willow had overshadowed the confusion of her twin's predatory sexuality. Besides, this thing she had for Tara was so not that. She only partially realized it at the time, and even becoming aware of it, she found herself unable to stop it, but she distanced herself from Tara to give herself time to process the possibility that she was indeed at least newly gay, and what she was feeling was a massive crush for her always gay friend.

Of course, Tara had been hurt and retreated herself, believing, partially from unfortunate prior "almost" experiences, that it had been too much for her first real, close, but straight friend. She had been devastated when only days after she'd reconciled herself to the fact Willow no longer wanted to be friends, she found out they had somehow made Kera, and everything changed. After she had told Willow, the younger witch went full-tilt into duty-mode. That came with issues all its own. The last thing Tara wanted was to be Willow's by default…

Willow started a gentle motion, trying to reach Tara's extra sensitive place that would accelerate her undoing. It was different—a challenge—finding it with the end of the toy, rather than her fingertips. She had been able to find it within seconds the first time she had tried ten years ago. The sense memory quickly became knowledge and always led her back without fail. Using the extension, however, she could only rely on Tara's reactions to her movements. The little noises Tara made spurred Willow on. It was different, but definitely still felt so fucking good, having her lover inside her this way, her mouth and hands free to tease all the other parts of her body. Willow continued her gentle, slow rhythm, and after a minute of the leisurely fucking, was able to slide the length of the extension into Tara's cunt, completely sheathing the bright purple dildo inside her lover. Tara's hands moved from Willow's shoulders to her hips and Willow followed her directions...

The realization of it was like a slap in the face to younger Willow. She wasn't really prepared the first time she had a (really) wet dream about her new friend. But then the dreams became constant, prompting research, of course, and some jealousy of Tara's other female friends, few as they were, and awkwardness, until she worked up the courage to make a move, which entailed just broaching the subject to a somewhat shocked Tara. Tara was 6 months swollen with Kera when Willow had, rather clumsily, confessed that maybe she wanted more from Tara than being a birthing partner during delivery, and co-parenting when Kera would be born. Then it had become Tara who doubted, who suspected Willow was mistaking her over-developed sense of duty for something for her. It had taken a while for them to mutually acknowledge that there may be something between them, beyond magic, beyond even their child…

It had taken a while—Kera was already six months old when it happened, to get to the point of empirical proof, but when it came, so to speak, the fact was undeniable.

Sex with Tara was incredible.

It really was an aha! moment in Willow's young life. Aha! This is what bliss feels like. Being a warm, wet, boneless mass, cuddled into another soft body. Aha! It was a revelation, one that felt new each time. And they seemed to be getting better at it, too, which was crazy because, even that first time, woo and hoo! And the closeness... Oh god, it was like Tara was crawling around her soul when they were inside each other. But that night, tonight… Willow couldn't imagine being closer to anyone else. This is what always is.

_Tara held her close. "W-What w-was…?" _

_Willow peered into her face. It had been months since Tara stuttered. But her love was only out of breath, nothing more. "Don't know," she whispered. "But was it—?"_

"_Mmm…" Tara assented. "it w-was good, just a surprise." Despite what Willow thought, she was still shaky, thinking she could be so open, unwillingly, unprepared, even if it was Willow. But instantly, it became alright. It would only ever be Willow. She was slowly catching her breath and still held her love close so that whispering was enough. "I won't be surprised next time."_

Each time since, there would still be the slight shock, though it became less with every occurence. Now, especially given the timing, it barely registered, failing to break Tara from her steady, inevitable tightening…

Willow felt Tara's convulsions through the silicone connecting them. It was enough for her, too, and in the moment before she tipped over and completely lost rational thought, she imagined the apex they were launching themselves from, together, her body spread against Tara's underneath her.

Willow at last relaxed against Tara, their bodies slowly uncoiling. They were pleasantly sweaty and still flushed and buzzing from their lovemaking.

I love you. It was a spontaneous thought in Tara's mind, the words bubbling up and forming at the crest of the wave of intense emotion that often swept through her in moments like this. She knew Willow knew it and neither needed to be reassured by hearing the other vocalize it any longer, so she only squeezed her love tighter.

"I love you, too," Willow whispered back, anyway. She pulled the toy gently out of Tara but was too exhausted to free herself from the apparatus. They drifted into sleep like they did back then.


	5. Saturday Morning, part one

Tara woke with her lover's arms around her from behind—a familiar feeling, and very welcome. Not so familiar was the feeling of a firm foreign object pushed up against her backside. She gently maneuvered from Willow's embrace without waking the redhead and managed to turn the woman onto her back. It made unfastening the harness and manipulating the straps to remove the device from her lover's hips possible. She pulled the apparatus away then turned to look at her nude partner in the diffuse morning light spilling in softly through the sheer-curtained windows.

The shape of Willow's body had not changed much since they had become lovers almost ten years ago. Up top, she was thin and lean. Her breasts petite and well-suited to her slim frame. Her hips were wide and womanly, and her ass and thighs well shaped and muscular. Her nipples were red, favoring her complexion. Between her legs, the triangle of pubic hair was neatly trimmed. It was as red as the hair on her lover's head. There were still slightly pink harness marks against the pale skin of Willow's thighs and Tara worried briefly about chafing before noting the marks already seemed to be diminishing as she lightly rubbed them before Willow sleepily coughed and she relented. Her eyes continued their slow journey back up Willow's body, registering but not lingering on the scar visible at the top of her left shoulder, a reminder of her time spent in the Ban-Ghot Hell, knowing it traveled the length of Willow's back, diagonally, ending at the back of her right hip, back to the face she knew so well…

She ended her appraisal of her lover's body and concluded with a grateful sigh that overall, Willow was in very good physical health, given her history. In fact, Tara's smile turned lusty, she was in fan-fucking-tastic shape, for any American woman technically 30 years old, not to mention one who had spent several additional years trapped in a hell dimension. Willow was a bit of an exercise nut and, though Tara never brought it up, she knew her love was a bit vain about keeping her slight build through the years. Tara had a harder time of keeping her college physique, had resigned herself that her body would never be as tight as it had been when she was 19 and in love with her nerdy and impossibly straight fellow witch, especially after three childbirths, two full-term natural deliveries and one c-section, but Willow never made her feel less than beautiful, no matter what stage her body was in. Even so, she tried to keep herself as tight as possible, to please her beautiful redhead. The regular lovemaking was both one of the means and the end to that.

Gently, she pulled the sheet back into place and tucked it around her lover's body, then slipped out of bed, taking the sex toy and harness with her to wash in one of the newly renovated en suite bathroom sinks. When done, she returned to their bedroom and carefully placed the toy on the bedside table along with some lotion, just in case, then shrugged on her robe and quietly left the room, leaving the door ajar, to go downstairs. She would make her love some breakfast, to thank her for the wonderful night they just had, and to refuel her body. Xander would have the girls until tomorrow, maybe Willow would like to stay in and make love all day and perhaps tonight…

* * *

Willow woke slowly from one of the deepest sleeps she'd had in recent memory, the kind where she knew she was dreaming but wouldn't be able to remember the content upon waking. It involved riding in airplanes and lying on top of Tara and sitting in a conference room listening to monotone speeches and looking at charts and the afterglow of coming very hard with Tara shuddering in her arms in the throes of her own orgasm beneath her. Occasionally the face of a Ban-Ghot would flash briefly through the images, as they had since her return, but after so many years back, they no longer filled her with dread as they did the first year she had returned.

The quality of her sleep was the kind that didn't permit a clean break into the waking world, but she was slowly roused at the realization that the body she clutched to her own was in fact a pillow. She was only briefly disappointed as she realized the pillow was her own, from her bed. Or their bed. Hers and Tara's. She squeezed it tighter, burying her face in it to breathe in their scents. She sat up and looked sleepily around herself, for her aforementioned woman, but she was alone in the room. She happened to glance to her side and the bright purple dildo, clean and neatly placed, caught her eye. Then the smell of pancakes hit her, and her stomach growled. She quickly pulled on a tee shirt and panties from her dresser and descended the stairs to the kitchen.

* * *

The coffee maker was gurgling and Tara adjusted the flame under the griddle, two browner-than-perfect pancakes already on the plate, pulling the bowl of batter closer to her, when Willow's hands reached around her, the right reaching forward and turning the same burner off. She watched, bemused, as Willow then reached for the knot of her robe and fumbled with it. "Um, excuse me?"

"I woke up and you were gone." Willow managed to make morning sexy-raspy still sound pouty.

"I thought I'd make you breakfast. Hungry, no?"

"No." Willow gently turned Tara in her arms, allowing her to finally undo the knot. She spread the robe and looked down at Tara's body, licking her lips. "Not for food, anyway."

"Wow, really? After last night? You really are insatiable."

"We don't get to do this every day." Willow gently relieved Tara of the spatula and placed it on the counter behind her lover.

Tara smiled. "Almost."

"Not in the kitchen. Not any time we want. Kind of novel. We should take advantage, don't you think?"

"The timing is about right."

"Long-term cohabitation resulting in virtually to-the-hour synchronized ovulating cycles has its advantages, especially when you're lesbians. Lesbians who do the lesbian sex thing. Together." Willow's fingers were feather-light on the skin of Tara's hips as she further separated the flaps of Tara's robe. "I have to admit, it was a factor in getting an early flight home." Her hands finally came to rest on Tara's hips, consequently also keeping the robe from falling closed.

"We could've taken care of each other over the phone again."

"It wouldn't be the same." Willow's grasp became firmer, as she carefully steered Tara toward the heavy oak farmer's table Xander had made for them as a house-warming present that they now mostly used for an island two steps behind them. "Plus, you know, with the toy dick and again, the right time of our cycle. I mean, it was nice and all, the penetration I mean, so it was an ideal time to try it, but not our usual thing—which I didn't get to do yet. Up?" She patted the table behind Tara.

Tara laughed. "You're serious? Now? Here in the kitchen?"

The look Willow gave her was intense and oh so serious. "Uh huh. Right here. Right now."


	6. Saturday Morning, part two

Driving through downtown San Diego with three maple syrup-infused kids in the backseat of his SUV was harder than it would seem, even if they were strapped down in their respective booster and car seats, Xander thought. It was different than any of the other many, many challenges he had faced in his relatively young life, but one he was looking forward to for his own brood, if and when he had one. He just had to find the right woman to have one with, for a start. It was just a hard proposition to find someone not already connected to the other part of his life, the Scooby part, who wouldn't completely freak when finding out about that essential side of him and run, as he realistically acknowledged any sane person would. He pushed away thoughts of Anya before he could get broody about it.

Most of the time, Willow and Tara's girls were extremely easy to care for. The exception, it appeared, was when you sugared them up, something Tara reminded him about before he took them but he should have known anyway from his childhood experiences practically growing up with Willow, who definitely had passed on some of her more uniquely Willowish traits to her children. Consequently, they often struck him as miniature versions of his best friend. That was particularly true of Kera and Danielle, who sported bright red shocks of hair, unlike Lily, a brownish blonde like Tara, though the middle child definitely had her own Willowish quirks. He glanced with amusement at his rear view mirror that he'd angled slightly down to catch the top of six-year old Lily's head on the passenger side of the backseat. Lily had not stopped talking since they'd left the restaurant, having a very animated discussion about the many things going on at her new school with Dani, who had had her first birthday party last month. Xander couldn't see the baby in her rear-facing car seat, though her voice in the form of short and random words and noises provided a rhythm section to Lily's steady melodic chatter. On Dani's other side, the eldest, ten-year old Kera, was stoically sitting in her booster seat, her eyes screwed shut and her hands over her ears as she tried to block out her sisters' steady chattering.

Xander was tempted to bring them back to his apartment, let the two little ones calm down a bit (and avoid letting Tara see them in this state), but Kera had wanted more books from her library having exhausted the small pile she'd initially packed for her stay with their uncle, the restaurant was only a couple of miles from their house, and all three wanted to say hi to their mom.

"Okay, Lil, remember what we talked about…"

"Don't tell Mommy how many pancakes I had for breakfast!" the child piped up.

"Very good," Xander affirmed.

He pulled into the side driveway of his friends' two story Victorian and steered toward the rear carport, pulling his Ford up besides Willow's Volkswagen. By the time he had opened the rear door by Lily, Kera's popped open and the little girl sprung out and made a beeline for the backyard gate that led to the back door into the kitchen. "Whoa, Kera! Wait for us!" Lily slid out and stood by his side as he released Dani's harness and carefully plucked the toddler from her seat.

Carrying Dani in one arm and holding Lily's hand with the other, they caught up with Kera who held the gate open for her uncle and sisters. As a group, they made their way to the backyard porch where Xander fished in his pocket for the house key Willow and Tara had given him. Before he could pull it free, a bit of movement in the window behind the sheer curtain stopped him. Peering in to try to focus beyond the curtain, he realized he was looking at Tara's bare back as she sat on top of the heavy oak breakfast table he had made them as a house-warming present five years ago. Her robe was down her arms so that it covered her bottom. Tara was cradling something between her legs, and her shoulders reflexively hunched and relaxed, rhythmically. Then, the hand on Tara's thigh, which definitely was not Tara's given the angle, came into view, squeezing her far up the inside of her leg, but mercifully moving outward, to grasp her at the waist…

Xander's eyes widened and he snapped back from the door as if physically slapped. Glancing down at his nieces who looked up at him expectantly, the shock quickly turned to anger.

It was a foreign feeling, this intense disgust directed to Tara. And then the sadness—profound, somehow simultaneously sharp yet dull, feeling the emptiness on behalf of his best friend since childhood.

It took him a long moment to get his wits back. "Uh, silly me. You know what? I forgot the key. I'm such a dummy, I think we need to go back to my place to get it."

Kera huffed a little impatiently. "Why don't we ring the doorbell and Mom will let us in?" she asked reasonably.

"Mommy should still be sleeping," Lily piped up.

"It won't take too long to go back to my place and get the key," Xander offered hopefully. He desperately wanted some time to figure out what to do. He barely had the presence of mind to steer the group around, away from the door hoping fervently Tara would not make a moany or otherwise sex-induced noise—something he and Buffy had teased Willow and her relentlessly about back when they had come for an unannounced visit at the small apartment the two women with just the one baby lived in during their college days, with its apparently thinly insulated walls and doors before the witches discovered a good sound-proofing spell.

Kera looked at her little sisters, then skeptically raised an eyebrow at Xander. Clearly she was reminding him of how long it took to get the two little ones packed and settled into the truck this morning. Surely he wouldn't leave them alone in the car even for the two minutes it would take to go enter his condo and retrieve the key? "We're here already, Uncle Xander. I really need my books, and we were going to wake Mom up anyway, remember? By making her breakfast?"

Damn, the raised eyebrow look was like looking at a miniature Tara. He cleared his throat. "Well, how 'bout that, though? We wouldn't be able to surprise your mom, huh?" Not that they really needed any more surprises today, he thought darkly. His surprise quota was full for the day, and it wasn't even 8 in the morning.

Kera paused a moment, her eyebrows knitted before purposefully concluding, "It's the lesser of two evils, Uncle Xander. We'll lose too much time going back to your house."

Xander was pretty sure he knew with whom the ten-year old had developed her logical debating skills. He considered playing the adult card and pulling out the presidential veto before the temptation passed and he conceded. "Yeah, okay, you're right, Kera. Let's go to the front. We can ring the doorbell." He took Lily's hand once more and waited for Kera to lead the little troop back to the front of the house. Their slow pace would buy him another minute to figure something out.

* * *

"Oh gods, Willow…" Tara bit her lip. Her hips moved of their own accord, asking for more of her lover's tongue as it danced just on the surface of her wet pussy, begging for it to fill her.

Willow prodded at her lover's clit, before taking the throbbing button between her lips and wetly sucking. The fingertips of one hand began a slow, circular tease of Tara's entrance where liquid was starting to pool.

"Nnnnngh…" was all Tara could say.

Willow enthusiastically attended to Tara, quite proud of herself. She loved the noises she drew forth from her lover. It was like she was sucking the moans out of her beautiful woman. She continued her efforts with giddy enthusiasm.

As much as verbal language had escaped her, Tara's hands were very much vocal, running her fingers through and stroking Willow's fiery red hair from her face, praising her lover for the spectacular way she was pleasuring the blonde. She began to play with Willow's ears and the redhead laughed as she was very ticklish around them. The vibrations must have gone straight through Tara's core as she gasped, throwing her head back.

"Sorry, babe, are you okay?"

Through her redhead-induced haze of lust Tara realized the tongue fucking and sucking had stopped. She looked down to peer through half-lidded eyes at the impish grin on her lover's pixie face. Willow's mouth, chin, cheeks, and the tip of her nose were shiny with Tara's cum. Tara just pulled the other woman firmly back into her pussy and rubbed herself on Willow's face until the muffled "okay" reached her and the tongue-lashing resumed…

* * *

It wasn't Xander's place to tell Willow, of that he felt fairly sure. Except it was his duty to do so. Damn it! All the time Willow had been in that hell dimension, and Tara had dutifully, steadfastly insisted she would return, that Will hadn't died when the charter plane carrying her and Faith went down off the coast of Scotland… Despite the pressure to do so from Buffy, from the insurance companies, from Willow's company, to accept the devastating loss for the sake of their daughters, so Kera and Lily could at least be taken care of financially after losing the family's main wage-earner. All the time Tara had stubbornly, irrationally refused to give up the remote feeling, the hope that her life hadn't been irrevocably shattered… It didn't make sense.

But Tara was his friend, too. What did he owe her in this mess? What doubt could he find that he could give her the benefit of? Resentment coursed through him. Why was he even in this position? He could give Tara a chance to come clean herself…

Then they were at the front door. Xander was a use-your-gut kind of thinker. He always had been, and for the most part it had worked for him. He doubted he would ever change how he approached the various crises from minor to downright apocalyptic the gods threw at him. He took a deep breath and jabbed at the doorbell before he could think of it any more. He would figure it out when he saw Tara face to face. Maybe seeing her kids would be enough to remind her of what she was losing going down this road…


	7. Saturday Morning, part three

Oh gods, Tara was close, but she had been here before. Several times, in fact, each closer to the edge than before. Willow would relentlessly drive her there, where they would teeter, the blood coursing through her veins, especially _down there_, then they would retreat. Would this finally be the time—?

_Ding-ding._

Willow was driving her mad. The ringing in her ears—

_Ding-ding._

Tara's eyes snapped open with a shock. This couldn't be happening. Without thinking about it, her hips continued to thrust forward against Willow's mouth. Perhaps her thighs against Willow's ears were muffling all external noise, because Willow continued to alternately tongue-fuck her and suck her clit, seemingly oblivious to—

_Ding-ding._

The third time was the charm. "What the fuck was that?" Willow frowned, surfacing to poise just above Tara's wet core.

Tara groaned. "The doorbell."

"Who the frilly heck is ringing our doorbell this early in the morning?!"

"I swear to all the gods we acknowledge and those we don't that I haven't a clue." Tara doubted she'd be able to think clearly at the moment to even attempt to reason a guess.

* * *

"Maybe Mommy can't hear the doorbell in her room," Lily helpfully offered.

By this time, Xander was fully committed to interrupting the horror that was happening—apparently, still—in the kitchen. He fished his cell phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts list. Willow's cell phone was under speed dial 3. He thought he had their landline under one of their names…

* * *

The frustration was evident in Tara's voice. After just a second's hesitation, Willow dove back to her previous position and began ferociously licking. She pushed two fingers into Tara's entrance and began a steady, firm thrust.

Tara gasped as her lover switched to a light sucking. "Will! What are you—nnnngh!" Willow took a long pull on Tara's swollen clit, finally pushing her over the edge into gushing bliss.

Willow grasped at Tara's thighs to steady the blonde's shuddering as she replaced her fingers with her mouth. She kept her lips firmly attached to Tara's pussy, her tongue continuing to mine every last drop of cum from her lover.

Slowly, the blonde came down from her high. When her back uncoiled Willow got to her feet, her hands firmly grasping Tara's hips. Tara instinctively slumped forward into Willow's embrace, gasping for air, raggedly sighing in Willow's ear. It took Tara a moment longer before she raised her head, turning Willow's face to her to reward her with a much deserved kiss but stopped, laughing softly, when she saw the state of Willow's face.

Her cum was streaked across her lover's cheeks and chin. There was even some in her eyelashes. Willow grinned as Tara took hold of her by both cheeks and pulled her in for a deep kiss, tasting herself all over Willow's lips and tongue.

_Ding-ding._

They pulled apart with a pop. Willow had a murderous look in her eye as she turned, clearly intent on confronting whoever was still leaning on her doorbell so early in the morning.

"Will, you can't—" Tara burst into giggles when the redhead turned to her, confirming her scowling face was still a mess.

"I'll just get rid of whoever it is."

Tara slid off the table gingerly, becoming uncomfortably aware that she was very... squishy down there. "Not looking like that, honey. I can stick my head out, just give me a moment to get myself together." She tested her balance and yes, still wobbly. "Maybe you can just see who it is. Look through the window first."

Willow wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she headed for the front of the house. She felt a little silly tiptoeing to her own living room window to peek through a gap in the curtains, but once she did—Shit! She hurried back to the kitchen, the previous scowl now a look of consternation and mild panic. "It's Xander! And the kids. Wasn't he supposed to keep them until tomorrow?"

"Xander? Yes, he was." Tara unconsciously tied her robe closed tighter around herself. "Are the girls—?"

"They looked fine. Maybe it's an emergency potty stop. Lily's dancing around next to him out there like she has to go bad. He's got his phone out. I think he's about to—"

_Riiiiiing_

"—try calling next! And why is he ringing the doorbell, instead of using the key we gave him? He better not have lost it again!" The phone rang faintly a couple more times from the living room before stopping. They only kept one of the landline phones on each level, mostly to keep the frustration of the cordless handsets going missing at a minimum as the various speaking members of their household, minus Tara, tended to walk around with them while using them.

"Will," Tara raised her voice slightly to interrupt her partner. "Focus. Do you really think Xander and the kids just opening the door and walking in would've been a good idea five minutes ago?"

Willow blushed.

_Ding-ding._

Then her eyes widened in panic. "I can't kiss the kids like this! I gotta go wash up!" She turned tail and ran upstairs through the rear staircase.

"Oh for goddess' sake, Willow!" Tara hurried to the sink, wincing as she was reminded of her state underneath her robe, grabbing a dish cloth. At least it's clean, she thought darkly, as she ran it under warm water then did a quick series of swipes of herself, grimacing at the roughness of the terry cloth against her still sensitive area. She hoped it was enough to suppress her smell.

_Ding-ding._

She quickly washed her face, taking a swallow of her now lukewarm coffee, then re-wrapped and tied her robe even more tightly around herself. She walked as quickly as she could to the door and opened it. "Xander. Hey."

"Mommy!" Lily tugged at the hem of her mother's thankfully calf-length robe. Tara bent down and scooped up her daughter and hugged her to her chest before stepping aside to let her friend enter.

Xander stepped in carrying Dani. As Kera walked in, Tara squeezed her shoulder. "Hi Mom!"

"Hi, sweetie. What are you all doing here? We weren't expecting you until tomorrow. Is everything alright?"

"You tell me," Xander muttered darkly. He did not meet Tara's curious gaze.

Tara was taken aback at Xander's uncharacteristic attitude. "Xander, is everything alright?" she repeated carefully, with more meaning.

Xander looked at Tara, her hair mussed, her lips slightly swollen and her eyes wide and bright. He found himself blushing, embarrassed for them both. "Yeah. Everything's good, Tara. The girls just got a little homesick is all. They just wanted to visit before we head to the zoo. And Kera needed some more books."

Kera took the prompt and ran upstairs, eager to get to her things now that they were finally inside.

"We were going to make you breakfast in bed, Mommy, but Uncle Xander forgot the key so we had to ring the doorbell," Lily offered helpfully. "Then we tried to call, but you didn't answer the phone!"

Thank the gods for that, Tara thought. "Sorry, I was in the bathroom and couldn't get to it in time." She smiled. "So, breakfast in bed? That's so sweet of you guys." She tentatively tried again with Xander, "You didn't lose the key, Xander? You know how Willow gets about lost keys. Last time we had to change all the locks."

Xander smiled tightly back. "Nope. Just forgot it. Probably sitting on the counter back home."

Tara frowned. "You sure everything's okay? How's—?"

"It's all good, Tare. Really."

Tara knew there was something not right with her friend but decided to ask Willow to handle it later. "Well, come on in. I was about to start breakfast, you guys can help since I'll have to make more—"

"We already ate at Breakfast Mmmporium this morning, Mommy! I had three pancakes all by myself!" Lily blushed, belatedly remembering her promise to her uncle.

"You did, huh?" Tara looked pointedly at Xander, her eyebrow raised, a half smile on her lips.

"But I didn't eat a lot. I didn't eat too much."

"Well, it's okay to have a little sugar in the morning, as long as it's not so much to give you a tummy ache."

Xander was reminded yet again of how dirty the English language could be in the right—or wrong context.

"Do you still want to help me with breakfast?"

Lily nodded, happy at not being scolded and not getting Uncle Xander in trouble for her slip-up. Tara let her slide from her arms, took Dani from Xander, and the group started for the kitchen.

A loud, high-pitched, excited squeal burst from upstairs. Tara smiled, wondering which of her girls had made it, not noticing Xander's face blanch. "Oh no," he gasped. "Kera…"

Tara realized the cause of Xander's panic and reached out with her free arm to grab him by the shoulder. "Xander, it's alright! See?" She motioned at the top of the stairs where Willow and Kera appeared, hand in hand.

"Daddy's home!" Kera announced her discovery proudly.

"Will," Xander sunk back, realizing several things at once.

Tara smiled again, happy that they had as wonderful and caring a man as Xander in what many would consider their odd family.

"Hey guys!" Willow was in a fresh t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Her hair was neatly brushed and her face had the pinkish hue of fair, freckled skin that had just been scrubbed hard enough to exfoliate. At the bottom step, she gave Lily a kiss and took Dani from Tara. "Da-da!" The little girl laughed, happy to play the game of pass-the-baby among her parents.

Tara noted the minty scent of her lover's breath and rolled her eyes. "Thanks. Xander said the kids got homesick. Can you get breakfast started? I'm going to go upstairs and freshen up."

It hardly seemed possible given her already ruddy complexion, but Willow turned even redder at her partner's request. She mouthed "sorry" as she turned to Xander and Tara headed upstairs. "Xan! Hey. I came in last night, surprised Tara. We were going to call today. Wow, you guys are up early. How were the kids?"

"Good. They were great," Xander managed. He was so relieved. So, so relieved. "Uh, sorry to just barge in this early in the morning. I hope this is okay, just dropping in. We thought we were going to surprise Tara with breakfast, but turned out, I forgot your key at my place."

"As long as you know where it is," Willow allowed. "And absolutely yes to being okay. I missed my girls! Not a problem to see them a day early. But were you planning to do anything with them today? You totally still can, and, you know, Tara and I can join you if you want, if it's not special uncle-nieces bonding time. Or you can leave them if they've been too much. We'll take them. Thanks, by the way. It's awesome you're doing this on your vacation."

Xander laughed. "Whoa, Willster. You know I wanted to take 'em. And I'm sure you and Tara have other stuff to do today." He blushed furiously as an image of what his best friend and her girlfriend had already done so far this morning flashed through his now unburdened, guilt-free mind. "I still want to take them today, if it's okay. We were going back to the zoo, we have two-day tickets, then maybe LEGOland to look at their seasonal display before it folds up."

Willow smiled teasingly. "You're skipping the hyenas at the zoo, right?"

Xander grinned at the light jibe at their high school days. "Absolutely."

* * *

Later, during breakfast as Willow and Tara had their pancakes, the girls juice and Xander coffee, Tara noted that whatever had been bothering Xander seemed to have resolved itself. She caught him beaming at her and Willow several times that morning, as Willow and the girls relayed their respective activities during the four days they were separated. Tara had very little to add. She had caught up on reorganizing and clearing out their basement but hadn't even started painting the den where Kera would be moving so that Lily could take her room and Dani take Lily's. Dani was old enough to not need the small nursery, which they were going to convert to Willow's office, so that room had needed painting, too, which Tara had done yesterday before Willow's arrival. That had prompted the girls staying with Xander so she could do the painting with them out of the house. Willow volunteered to stay behind for the day rather than go with Xander and her daughters to the zoo and park to help Tara finish Kera's room. Tara raised her mug to her lips and took a long, slow sip of her coffee to hide her smile at that. Willow openly leered at her partner as Xander helpfully looked up at the ceiling, concentrating on a dimple that could use some filling. Ever since Giles moved back to England after they defeated the First and Sunnydale collapsed into the sinkhole that the hellmouth had become, he had sort of stepped into Giles' roles as responsible male of their close-knit group. A side effect it seemed was taking on some of the older man's mannerisms which he now realized were pretty good coping mechanisms for dealing with raging teen—or now, at least, teen-like—hormones.


	8. Saturday Afternoon

There were generally two schools of thought regarding the long game when living the Scooby life: one, favored by Slayers for obvious reasons, you won't live long, don't make promises you can't keep, don't bother planning on a future; and two, life is short regardless, grab your honey if you find her and live it to its fullest no matter what. They aren't completely divorced philosophies. Both stem from the assumption of a significantly shortened life expectancy that naturally came from hunting demons and fighting evil for a significant portion of one's waking hours. The differences between them have to do with personal conceptions of responsibility with respect to the ego (the individual and the family) and to the society at large.

Being more or less thrust into the family situation with Kera, they had both grabbed hold of each other's hand and jumped together into option two without a lot of deliberation. What made it odd (or odder than it already was), in the process of jumping they realized that this new status as now being a component of something much larger was one they both individually and as a tandem wanted more than anything, and would make even without the pressure of suddenly and unexpectedly being responsible for the life of a child.

But planning beyond the immediate was difficult, when the implementation, besides the practical concerns (such as the years-long Recession and slow economic recovery they suffered through along with everyone else who wasn't uber rich), also had to navigate through the mystical to happen. It had always been something of a fundamental conflict for Willow, who tended toward the empirical and scientific and logical—except, it seemed, when it came to Tara and the magic they made together.

The master bathroom renovation had been their anniversary present to each other—their legal supporting documents anniversary, when they finally finished, with the help of their family attorney (one of Ira's college friends he had stayed in contact with who Willow thought more of as an uncle than her lawyer), setting up the matching sets of POAs, living wills, and insurance policies, legal guardianships for Willow, joint accounts WROS, etc. It was the most they could do since Willow had literally been in Hell during the few months marriage was a legal option in California before Prop 8 passed.

The re-shuffling of rooms was also a sign they'd be staying here in their present home for the foreseeable future. A big part of option two was optimistically deciding they wanted a big family. It was something both had missed out on themselves with their own childhoods, but now, with the accidental gift of finding each other through having Kera, seemed the most natural thing to want. Yes. Yes, of course. Let's have more kids. It will be you and me and our babies, always.

After deciding early on that they wanted to have a big family of undefined size, staying in the technically 3-bed/2-bath starter they had bought just after Tara graduated with her BA and teacher's certification had since been open to debate on and off, since squeezing more than three kids in the house while Willow worked from home just wouldn't work.

The debate was on when they realized they could replicate the ill-researched spell used to magically conceive Kera, and did with Lily. The debate was off when Willow returned from Ban-Ghot hell stripped of her magic. Back on when the demon she'd given her power to in exchange for Faith's and her return went crazy with the white magic and hunted her down to punish her and ended up giving it back to her, a little blacker for the borrowing. Off after they had Dani.

Dani's birth had been difficult, early and after a harrowing series of complications, ended with an emergency Caesarian and partial hysterectomy. Then when their doctor gave them the mixed news, the baby was small but was healthy but would also be their last after the damage to Tara's uterus…

"Hey pretty lady. What's going through that pretty head of yours?" Willow's arms encircled her waist from behind again as she returned from the door where she'd seen Xander and her daughters back to his car.

Tara quickly shifted gears to prevent her perceptive lover from picking up and being affected by her pensive mood. "Three coats; one primer, two paint."

Willow groaned. "You were serious? You're really going to spend the day painting?"

"Will, that was the point of Xander taking the girls a couple of days during the school break." Tara gently extricated herself and started upstairs, her shoulder hiding her smile as she threw a parting glance at the pouting redhead. "But you did promise to help, so that should cut down the time it takes to a couple of hours. The rest of the day…?"

Willow grinned and scampered to follow Tara upstairs.

* * *

Or not. Tara frowned. She had not taken into account the possibility Willow helping might actually add to the time to finish the task.

Her brainy lover was measuring everything from the paint coverage specified on the cans (with 20% overhead to cover the typical manufacturer's over-promise) to the area of the walls including the closet, pre-scoring painter's tape, mixing for a full ten minutes with her power mixer, and insisting on prepping the entire room before picking up a brush.

Tara knew she should be grateful, that the careful preparation would save time later on, at the end of the chore during cleanup, but for all her earlier coyness, she really wanted to finish to get back to the naked smoochies part of the day.

Still, at the end of it all, it was so predictably Willow. She smiled fondly as her partner methodically numbered in pencil the baseboard mold pieces she had painstakingly removed so she would be able to paint them separately and reinstall them later in the correct order. When Xander had helped with the remodel after they'd bought the house six years ago, Willow had asked him to use wood screws instead of finishing nails to install the base molding. The tip paid off on occasions like this, even if it was slightly obsessive. Willow did look cute in her coveralls and handyman's belt, though. It struck Tara then, that it was enough, just having this extra, unexpected day with Willow. Tara smiled unconsciously. She adored Willow. The world was wonderful because this woman, her woman, was in it. With her. That was the amazing part. Willow was Tara's, and she was completely Willow's.

Willow frowned at Tara's bemused expression. "Okay, what? Do I already have paint on my face? It can't be that. I was careful not to spill a drop." Willow picked up a clean stir stick. "This is the last room, right? Do you think one can of primer is enough? I can run to the hardware store and pick up another, but then we might end up with too much—?"

"It's fine, Willow. Let's get this over with."

Willow's prep work really did cut down on the project time by the end, especially clean up, as they hardly had any touch-ups due to the careful tape application and the removal of the baseboards. They squeezed in lunch before the final coat and kept the clean up to the bare minimum before they were back in their bedroom, Willow on her back on their bed with Tara on top of her, straddling Willow's hips. Willow was again donning the harness and dildo so Tara was literally riding her toy cock. Tara liked it like this. She was full of her lover whose hands were free to roam up and down her torso while she set the pace, heavier, quicker, deeper. They had seemed to find a new groove.

Willow watched her with wide eyes, her lips slightly parted as she panted as Tara's thighs tightened and relaxed, pushing and rubbing the bright purple rubber toy in and out of her very wet cunt and through the extension, her own throbbing clit beneath.

They had tried it the other way around at first, Tara topping her missionary style, but Tara found the stimulation on her clitoris with the base of the toy less than satisfying. It might have been better with Willow on her hand and knees as she had been, but Tara doubted it. She needed to spread her legs wider for the dildo to hit her clitoris right. Plus, part of her pleasure was looking at Willow's face as she made the other woman cum. Willow, frankly, found she didn't miss the penetration. What did appeal to her was the way Tara moved her hips with the toy sheathed inside her. When Tara's fingers started to rub at her own clit in sync with the dildo pulling and pushing into her, sliding deliciously inside Tara's stretched pussy lips, Willow just about came herself.

Still, she felt a little possessive about Tara's pleasure. Before either came from the toy, she sat up so that Tara was in her lap then gently lowered the blonde onto her back. It made the dildo slide wetly out where it popped up and wagged obscenely after clearing her entrance. Tara giggled despite the urgency of her situation and Willow quickly unbuckled and removed the harness, tossed the apparatus aside, and used three fingers instead.

Tara seemed just as appreciative and moaned just as loudly as her fingers continued to dance over her wet clit. There was nothing in the world like the feeling of Tara's soft, smooth walls around her fingers, squeezing and hot and wet all at the same time. She reached for and easily found the rougher spongy patch that would make Tara gush. She bent her head down, nudging Tara's hand away with her cheek, then promptly sucked Tara's exposed clit into her mouth, and gently began to pull.

Tara's hands were almost immediately in her hair, smoothing the damp bangs from her face. Willow looked up as Tara eyed what was going on between her legs and their eyes locked as Tara came, her mouth forming a silent "O" as if to convey, "Oh fuck, that's good, Will."

Willow climbed up Tara's body as her lover came and lay on top of the other woman to feel her orgasm make her whole body shake. It was enough to make her cum, too, and she did, cunt to cunt, face to face, breast to breast, hip to hip. Tara very helpfully bent her leg and let Willow ride it, holding the other woman close to her through the fore-gone conclusion of their rare afternoon alone. Then Willow collapsed on top of her, and they were one sweaty heap of satisfied witch.

They were happy. And tired. But incredibly happy. They took a nap, mindful that they had not eaten yet, and their precious day still had some hours left.


	9. Early Sunday Morning

The dinner they cooked together was actually eaten in the dining room and there was no crazy dining room table sex this time. They ate the pasta and seafood dinner (no shrimp) with white wine in relative quiet, at ease with the feeling that they were spending the rest of the day with the person they would spend the rest of their days with. After dinner, a check-in with Xander and a round of goodnights with their daughters. Then they watched the news cuddled together on their sofa—again, no kinky sofa sex, then the on-demand episode of _Grey's Anatomy_ Willow had missed while on her trip earlier that week before the day caught up to both of them and Tara gently nudged her partner upstairs after the third time a big yawn interrupted Willow's comment on the inevitable contrived fuck-over of the happy lesbian couple "to advance their individual character development." Willow had barely spent ten minutes looking at emails before she climbed back into bed next to Tara reading her novel. They kissed lightly before Willow rolled onto her side and was soon unconscious. Tara was not far behind, barely managing to turn down the light before sleep took over.

* * *

Tara climbed gingerly back into bed from the toilet visit.

Her intention was to shut off the light and cuddle with Willow, but her careful movements had already woken her partner. Lean arms wrapped around her waist then slender but strong hands massaged down to stroke her inner thighs. "Will…"

"Kids'll be back tomorrow. We still have a few hours," Willow said to her back, not letting up for a moment.

"Honey, we can make love after they come back. This isn't a marathon."

Willow's hands paused, then receded. "Oh. Were you not…?"

Tara sighed, exasperated. "That's not what I meant, Will." She turned and looked at her lover, who appeared forlorn. This was the hard part about loving Willow. Even after all the years they'd already had, old insecurities unexpectedly came up and were sometimes hard to shake. She grasped her lover's hands, pulling her back to close to kiss her on the lips. They kissed slowly, Tara using the contact to convey what she did mean. She wanted slow, this time. They had all the time in the world. They had the rest of their lives.

"Oh," Willow sighed when the gentle kissing paused. "Okay."

Tara settled down besides Willow, into their regular cuddling position with Tara's head on Willow's shoulder. Tara traced lazy patterns with the tips of her fingers on Willow's breastbone, enjoying the steady beat of her lover's heart in her ear and against her cheek.

"I guess I've been Miss Grabby-hands since I got home, huh?"

"A little," Tara confirmed. "But I like it, too. I like how you make me feel so wanted."

"Well I do. Want you. Every day. I missed you the whole time I was away."

Tara closed her eyes to stop the tears from releasing. There was so much to read in Willow's words beyond the simple meaning of being away for a few days on a conference on the other side of the country. She squeezed closer into Willow but said nothing.

Willow chuckled, realizing the mood had turned unexpectedly somber but not wanting to go there. This was a happy time. Sure, they still had a very healthy sex life with three kids in the house, but real alone time, when the parents in them could be disengaged and she could devote every bit of her attention to loving Tara, was precious and not to be missed by something as mundane, if necessary, as sleep. "Of course, I still want you even when I'm not away. Like now. I know we'll always make time to be with each other, but it just seems… I don't know… a waste to just use the time sleeping when I could be trying to think up new ways to make you come."

"Well, I'm really not opposed to that plan, but isn't it a lot of work? You've been doing all the heavy lifting since you came home." Tara sat up. "I think this time, I should take a turn."

Willow raised an eyebrow at the dildo on the bedside table they had discarded since yesterday afternoon.

"No, no. I mean, it was fun, but not really my thing. Besides, I'm still a little sore from the last time."

Willow frowned. "Sore? Did I hurt you? Tara, why didn't you say something!"

"I think I did," Tara noted wryly. "As I recall, I said, 'harder, Will, fuck me harder.'"

Now it was Willow's turn to roll her eyes.

"And you did. So I know you can follow instructions," Tara tone suddenly became a bit… domineering. Sometimes taking charge like this was the only way to shake Willow from her natural tendency to assume so much responsibility, over plan and worry. "So what do you say? You think you can just sit back and let me have my way, again?"

Willow, eyes wide, silently nodded.

* * *

"Don't move, Will," Tara mumbled around the pert nipple between her teeth. "And no talking, either. It'll feel better when you do come. Later."

Oh God, asking a babbler not to babble especially when you're doing _that_ to her was so not fair.

Tara used her tongue to soothe the areola and nub that she had been nipping seconds ago. Her hand, in the meanwhile, was between Willow's legs, her fingers deftly parted the prone woman's swollen lips. After several moments teasing, Tara looked up from Willow's chest, then let the nipple go with a small pop. She quickly, gently replaced her hand with her knee. Willow gushed. Tara dragged her leg from knee to toe between Willow's legs, pressed firmly against her lover's pussy. She was rewarded by pulling out a satisfyingly low, lovely whimper from the back of Willow's throat to complement the streak of warm wetness on her shin. Her partner's eyes and lips were shut tightly, which was the only thing that could be better. "Let me see your beautiful eyes, love."

Willow's big, bright green eyes were a marvelous emerald as she gave Tara the requested look. Her lower lip disappeared behind her teeth as she bit her lip as Tara's big toe lingered then finally left her. She had held herself as still as possible despite her pounding heart as Tara pleasured her with her foot but as soon as the blonde's toe emerged from her folds she growled and pounced on the other woman. Tara squealed, a peal of laughter at her lover's antics as Willow quickly rolled the blonde onto her back and straddled Tara at the widest part of her hips, effectively spreading herself open to settle herself on Tara's mound. "Not… bad," Tara gasped as the rolling of Willow's hips sent a shock of lust through her own body. She spared a glance at the bedside clock. "Thirteen minutes before you caved this time…"

Willow just grunted in acknowledgment. The delicious friction of Tara's wiry hairs against her lips and clit offset by her freely flowing honey made Willow dizzy with lust, Tara's reaction to her grinding, pushing up to feel the soft, wet warmth so close to her own needy cunt, compounding the feeling even more so. "Gods… love you so much," Willow gasped, her eyes closing at the rushing in her heart matching the rushing between her legs.

Tara's own heart filled and she almost came but held on. She no longer needed to hear the words, but whenever Willow said them it felt so good, anyway. Maybe more so because of that. "You love me?"

"I do," Willow replied, opening her eyes, her voice urgent, the words held back so long now threatening to overtake her. "I love you. _So much_. You're everything I need, all I want. Every minute, every second… I love you, Tara."

"I love you too, Will," Tara said simply.

It was enough to send Willow crashing over, shuddering and shaking and gasping for breath. She kept her weight off her lover with trembling arms even as the feeling of her orgasm pounding in waves through her triggered Tara's own beneath her. Tara was still shaking as Willow managed to dismount her, push her legs open, and settle herself against Tara's quivering flesh to feel the rest of Tara's orgasm against her own tender cunt. Gradually Tara came down and coaxed Willow down on top of her. Their wet and tired bodies melted into each other and they drifted off into another deep sleep.


	10. Some Weeks Later

Willow brushed her teeth, getting ready for bed. She glanced down and noticed the bin was almost full again. She frowned, sure she had emptied it just yesterday morning since garbage day was tomorrow. On top was the wrapper for Tara's sanitary napkin. Tara still bled regularly after having Dani, so nothing strange about that. Willow recalled this day last month minus two days or so and the fact slotted into its logical place.

Being preoccupied with more immediate thoughts of an issue with one of her current work projects and a fundraiser at Kera's school, it took a moment before the additional consequences of that fact began to register. Willow slowly lowered her toothbrush, deliberately rinsed it under the tap, shut off the cold water, and replaced the brush in the holder at the back of the counter.

Her brow furrowed as she stood very still, taking mental stock. Her eyes widened as it sunk in that only Tara's wrapper was in the bin, and that it was for a pad rather than the tampon each would use for their heavier days, so Tara was at least three, possibly four days into her cycle. Willow was at least three, possibly four days late.

They hadn't had sex in almost a week, which was no big deal. The lulls in their lovemaking were regular, two to three days a month that neither sought out the other because of the extra messiness, but also, ten years and three children together, intimacy was as much cuddling and served almost or just as well as the full-on triple-X graphic horn-dog sex that had often been on their minds and marked their sheets as new lovers. So it hadn't occurred to Willow to press the issue with her partner when the other woman just went to bed the past few days with just a kiss goodnight.

She took a deep breath. After the complications with Dani's delivery and its effects on Tara's reproductive health, they had come to accept Dani would be their last. As Tara had carried all their girls, even when they had very deliberately tried the other way with Lily, she supposed they just assumed… Dawn used to tease them mercilessly about it, referring to Willow as Studly McStud Stud, especially after all her daughters had given her the title of da-da when each began to talk.

The facts began to compound to make the impossible kinda sorta possible. Of course, she could just be late, although ever since she could remember, excepting Tara's pregnancies of course, she and Tara had been regular as clockwork, once their cycles had synced after just four months living together.

Somehow she found herself sitting on the edge of the bed and thought back to over two weeks ago, and her homecoming. The timing was right, and the day and a half of almost constant lovemaking…

Logically, Willow supposed the only thing to do was to pick up a home pregnancy test and take it when she could. There was no point in voicing her concerns with Tara, until she was sure, especially not this early.

Because, again, maybe it was nerves, because now that the thought entered her brain, there it was and there was no un-thinking it. Really, a freakout was pretty inevitable given the subject matter and her natural tendency to over-react, pretty much about anything, much less something potentially huge like this. Or maybe it was something she'd eaten. She never brought it up with Tara, but sometimes she worried about what the seven years or so in a hell dimension had done to her (and Faith's) long-term human constitution. She also painfully reminded herself that in the past, being a big brain didn't preclude her from being a big dummy and shooting her mouth off first, which regrettably had sometimes led to awful results, including, she was ashamed to admit, Tara in tears. This time, she'd be patient and wait to the take the test first, get some empirical information to form an accurate analysis, then come up with a plan of action accordingly.

She looked again down her body. Her hand was unconsciously still pressed against her flat belly, almost cradling it. The more she thought about it, the stronger the feeling grew…

* * *

Tara would look back at the day Willow told her, and laugh.

It was pretty amazing when you thought about it. For a couple who could never naturally have a child together, somehow they had managed four. Or, at least soon enough four. All their daughters were, to some extent, unexpected.

Kera, accidentally made from a haphazardly chosen spell when the two witches were only friends and Willow was still straight and heart-broken from Oz leaving.

Falling in love and making a commitment to each other came after, but once there, everything seemed to fall in place. Tara was technically in her third year at UCS, having lost a semester to have Kera while Willow had graduated early and worked from home as a freelance programmer. They redid the spell reversing their parts and tweaking it with some really good sex, thinking Tara could finish her last year and graduate while Willow had the baby. Only it hadn't worked the way they planned, for whatever reason. At least Lily was a comparatively easy delivery. Tara eventually graduated the year after (from UC SD since UC S was by then underground after Buffy defeated the First). Then a year later, Willow was taken…

Dani came into being while Willow was locked up in the hotel basement cell in Los Angeles that Team Angel had set up for the rare occasions when their boss lost his soul and had to be restrained until it could be restored. Funny how these situations arose often enough around Team Angel and Team Slayer to fall into the "plan ahead" category. But it had come in handy. Willow was physically and emotionally struggling with her restored, tainted power, unable to master it as it filled her with fear and anger and turned her eyes and hair black, to the point of begging Tara to take the kids and run from her darkness. It had taken a lot of coaxing from Tara, and the recreation of a past loving moment when magic was the weaker of the elements that made Lily, to finally belie the doomed life Willow felt she was left with.

And now… She watched as Willow, unaware of her attention, lay her hand cautiously on her belly. Tara's reaction was immediate and joyful, somehow knowing in her gut that this was a really good thing. Unexpected, but shouldn't they be used to that by now? But Willow, even upon receiving the confirmation from their long-time ob-gyn, had remained anxious and doubtful. It was, in a strange way, a little similar to how she had reacted to the first time Tara had given her similar news, with Kera. This time, though, there wasn't the associated hurt brought about by Willow's doubt, since no way would either of them be alone or feel alone ever again like she had felt that night when Willow, brow furrowed, had asked for some time alone to think about the unexpected turn of events.

Really, Tara understood. The idea that Willow could become pregnant hadn't entered either of their heads after their experience with Lily. Even Dr. Wyzneiwski had looked puzzled, but prior experience with this couple being what it was, she just shrugged and started a new file, this time with Willow's name first.

For the most part their family, minus Sheila and Ira, took it in stride. Willow's parents were still in the need-to-know or not-until-it's-already-obvious-and-further-denial-wasn't possible camp that they had resided in in Sunnydale. Willow still handled them with some caution though Ira especially had warmed to Tara. But their other immediate family were super-supportive. Dawn had squealed with pleasure, while Xander, in typical Xander-like fashion, had at first looked confused, blurting, "aren't you always the baby-daddy?" earning him a powerful glare of displeasure from Tara even as it caused Willow's brow to furrow. He immediately went into protective big brother mode after, though. Giles was Giles, congratulating them and offering his help in any manner he could assist, yet again. When they were a little further along with this one, they would call LA and share the news with their extended family there.

In fact, it struck Tara that relatively speaking, Willow took the longest to adjust considering she had known first. It had taken some patience, some debate both logical and emotional, and plenty of hand-holding to get Willow to the place Tara had been almost from the moment Willow hesitantly said, "I just peed on this," and showed her the familiar white plastic mini-paddle with the vibrant blue plus sign.

"Tara, what if—?" "We didn't do the spell…" "I wasn't remembering… Were you?" There was no accusation in Willow's tone, just consternation that her logical mind was having a hard time with this.

"Baby, no. I wouldn't without talking it over with you, and even then, after Dani—"

"I didn't mean—"

"I know."

Willow was quiet a long moment, deep in thought. Then she mumbled something.

"What did you say, Will?"

"Kinda funny this happens just after we redo all the kids' bedrooms and the office…" Willow said. She affected (but didn't really pull off) a small eye roll and huff. The smile on her lips was cautious…

There hadn't been a spell, to the best of their knowledge. But you just never knew with what lay beyond the logical. They were both incredibly powerful witches, particularly Willow. They could probe all they wanted, research was nothing new, but the test confirmed the remaining fact of the child growing inside her, regardless of the power that made it possible. At the end of the day, what did it matter? Just as important was the fact that they had their own kind of magic that had nothing to do with spells or demons or divine powers. No spells, but plenty of love. And maybe a touch of dildo sex.

"You know, since we weren't together-together when we had Kera, I don't have a point of reference to track ground zero," Willow tentatively offered.

Tara stayed patient despite the rare reference to their life before that other-magic-filled night Willow revealed she thought she might be gay, and wanted to try being gay with Tara.

"Did your boobies get permanently bigger from what they were before? 'Cause I could totally use a boost in that department."

Tara laughed. She knew there was real anxiety there about body image and pregnancy, but Willow being Willow, her lover was easing her way into facing those fears with humor.

Tara smiled, then laughed again as the realization on Willow's face positively lit her up. "Here we go again?"

It went without saying, but Tara said it anyway. "As long as it's together, love."

* * *

end

* * *

AN - I've here and there alluded to a detailed AU back-story that I created from the original launch-point of an unexpected mystical pregnancy, just to provide a plot skeleton to map this in my head against the backdrop of what was happening with the U.S. and world economy from 2008-12. I might revisit that back-story in the form of one-shots in the future, depending on whether I get stuck with writer's block again or if anyone is interested. If you want to send me a prompt for that you are totally welcome to do so and I'll see what I can do. Since the story's already in my head I think I could bang out a one-off pretty quickly and easily, and it would help me keep my momentum if it does stall out again.


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